Gone Wrong Again
by Lena7623
Summary: Fourth part of the 'Second in Command' series. Loki and Phoenix must face someone from Loki's past, but everything isn't as cut and dry as it would seem. Now it's a matter of figuring out how all of this will play into their little family, which has even grown to include some of the Avengers as well.
1. Chapter 1

(Author's Note: FINALLY, we arrive at the next full installment of the 'Second in Command' Series. If you would like an official 'prologue' to this, please go read two of the One Shots, 'The Adventures of Tony and Astra' and 'Socks the Cat Strikes Again.' I will still be updating the One Shots, as they are fun and get to fill in any real questions about what takes place between stories plus the two years between 'Redemption' and this story. Plus, most of them are just fun to do! So, enough of my babble and on with the show!)

Chapter One: We Need a List, Don't We?

Phoenix and Loki had sent a message saying what time they were coming to pick up Astra, so Tony, Bruce, and Steve spent much of the next morning getting the kid ready for her parents. She still spent most of her time clinging to Tony, yet somehow managing not really to get in the way of anything. Once they had all of her stuff together, there wasn't much to do but hang around the kitchen area and wait for Loki and Phoenix to show up.

Eventually they did show up, popping into the kitchen as they always did. No one even jumped this time when they showed up. Tony was hanging over a cup of coffee, and Bruce and Tony were playing some card game. Astra was sitting at the table, coloring in a book while Socks sat under the table, waiting for his owners to pick him up as well.

"Momma!" Astra squirmed out of Tony's arms as soon as Phoenix and Loki arrived to pick her up, running up to her mother and wrapping her arms around Phoenix's legs. Phoenix bent down and wrapped her arms around the child, picking her up and swinging her around.

She looked over at Tony and smiled. "Thank you for watching her," she said, most of her face buried in her daughter's long locks. She looked at Loki. "We need to call a meeting, so that you can tell them what you know about your little friend." She was still a touch agitated that, once again, Loki had an enemy about whom he didn't tell anyone. She might have to put in a chat with Thor to check and see if this was going to happen repeatedly. She smoothed over her daughter's hair and carried her out of the room.

Tony looked over at Loki after Phoenix walked away. "You in the dog house, Loki? Not a good idea to be pissing off the goddess of fire or whatever Phoenix is."

Loki smirked. "I'm actually considered the god of fire. You may want to brush up on your Norse mythology," he said. "She is a little...upset with me right now. It has to do with the dream that Astra had." He stopped Tony before he could ask any questions. "You should call everyone together. My daughter saw someone powerful that will come here to possibly attack."

Tony rolled his eyes. "Dude, how many enemies do you _have_?" he asked. "No wonder your wife is pissed at you. I know you're supposed to be God of Lies or whatever, but you got to have full disclosure with your wife." He looked off in the direction that Phoenix had headed off with Astra. "If the wife ain't happy, _no one's_ happy. Anything else you need to spill, you need to spill it soon."

"Am I really getting relationship advice from Tony Stark, conqueror of many women?" Loki asked with a roll of his eyes. "I am not sure if I should trust any advice that you have to give me on the subject."

Tony sighed. "Just because I suck at relationships doesn't mean that I don't know the truth about them," he said with a snort. "Quit hiding shit from your wife, asshole."

"There are a lot of years to go over to disclose everything," Loki said with a sigh.

"Like she ain't got her own shit to disclose," Tony pointed out. "And she's probably got more than you, both in stuff and years. Just trust that Phoenix isn't an idiot or whatever your issue is."

"Why are you so concerned about any marital problems that I may have?" Loki asked with a raised eyebrow.

"Because marital strife between two gods is **not** something I have any interest in witnessing," Tony told him. "I'm pretty sure one real nasty argument between the two of you would end up leveling a city block. SHIELD gets to clean that up, and we get bitched at, so solve your shit, man."

Loki finally nodded. "We will talk later then," he said, walking off to follow Phoenix.

"Well thank god for that," Tony said with a groan, sitting down at his kitchen table. He was pretty certain that the two of them were fine. He just...they were both far too good for one another (and seemed to now keep one another sane) for anything to be allowed to break out between them.

OoOoOoOo

Phoenix and Loki didn't speak much for the rest of the day, mainly avoiding one another because Phoenix as pissed at him and Loki really didn't want to get into things at Stark Tower. Moreover, there was a meeting to arrange, people to brief, and suddenly many things going on.

When everyone was gathered in one of the meeting rooms that Tony had, Phoenix had picked a seat far away, sitting in the corner with her child, who at the moment was resting on her shoulder, fast asleep. Everyone else, however, had gathered around the table, with Fury sitting at the head, next to Coulson and Hill, all of the Avengers are gathered around, and Loki is standing, pacing while he waits for everyone to show up. If Phoenix didn't know any better, she'd swear that Loki looked even _more_ nervous than when he had to talk about Thanos. That actually makes her feel more worried.

Thor is the last one to show up. He hadn't arrived with Phoenix and Loki, needing to wrap a few other things up on Asgard. When he did storm in, he looked like he wanted to ask why Phoenix wasn't sitting at the table, but one stern glare from her seemed to stop him. Right now, all Phoenix wanted to hear about was this new deal was about.

"Why does this feel really familiar?" Fury asked once Thor took a seat. "Oh yeah, because we did this two years ago. Loki, can we get a list of all the people that you've pissed off that will show up at some point? I'd really appreciate not being surprised by this bullshit again."

"You and me, both, Fury," Phoenix grumbled, holding onto her child extra tightly for a moment.

"I thought they were banished, Phe," Loki said, forgetting that they weren't alone in the room for a second by what he called her. He _never_ called her by that nickname in front of others. "You know I wouldn't keep pertinent information that could endanger everyone from you on purpose."

"Banished from Asgard doesn't mean banished from everything, apparently," Phoenix replied. "How many others are out there, really? At least I outlived mine. So, unless they start rising from the dead we shouldn't have problems with my enemies."

"Hey!" Fury shouted. "Marriage counseling later, information now, goddamnit! Loki, will you please explain why we're all here? All I was told was that there was someone else you had pissed off that was likely to show up because your kid had a vision. Can we learn who it is, who we deal with them, and if it's possible to prevent the destruction of the planet?"

Loki sighed, rubbing his eyes for a moment. "Sorry, Fury," he said quickly. "Thor will vouch for me that I really did not think that this would ever be an issue. Two of my childhood playmates were called Amora and Skrull. When we grew up and they plotted a takeover of Asgard, they were banished, and it was not as nice of banishment as to here, nor were they ever supposed to leave the place like Thor. Amora took it personally, when she felt that I did not defend her enough or argue for a lesser punishment. We were very close growing up and maybe I could have done something more for her."

"Either way, what's done is done. When I heard about Astra's vision, I asked Heimdall to look at where they had been banished to, and they were missing. It appears that not only did they finally find a way to escape, but that they were able to also figure out a way to escape Heimdall's gaze," Loki continued to explain. "So not only have they escaped, but they have found a way to keep anyone from tracking them."

"Lovely, more people who are pissed at Loki attacking Earth," Clint said with a groan. "I'm with your wife and Fury. Can we start getting a list of people or something? At least prepare for the next attack of 'people Loki angered with his _wonderful_ personality'?" Before anyone could respond, though, a small fire ignited in Clint's lap. While he screamed and flailed, Bruce pushed him over on the floor and made him roll, putting the fire out.

"Keep insulting my husband and next time I'll make sure that the fire starts _in_ your pants next time," Phoenix said with a dark smile. She looked toward Fury. "Can I go? I need to put my daughter down for a nap." When he nodded, she lifted up the diaper bag, carrying it off toward the door with her daughter as well, heading out without another word.

"Wow, man," Tony said to Clint as he was helped off the floor. "You really gotta stop pissing her off like that. She's just gonna set fire to your crotch every time."

"Not everyone can attain the revered position of _pet_, Tony," Clint snapped back at him. "She's mad because I insulted Loki's personality. She obviously agrees with everything else I said, though."

"I'm still here, Agent Barton," Loki said, smiling when Clint quieted. "Director, I'll fill you in on anything that you need to know, but right now I should probably attend to my wife. She's...not happy with me right now, obviously."

Fury nodded and waved him off. "I'm sure that Thor can fill us in on a few things," he said with a huff. "I'd rather not have to be around marital issues, thank you."

OoOoOoOo

Loki had forgotten that, while Phoenix couldn't teleport, she could move very quickly, as she was no longer in the building by the time that he had gotten away. She had apparently gathered all of Astra's things and Socks and had taken a car home. After hanging around to relay a bit more information to Fury, he simply teleported home, finding Phoenix waiting for him in the living room of their apartment.

Before he could say anything, though, Phoenix started. "You lied in there, Loki," she said to him. "You may be the God of Lies, but trust me, a wife knows."

Loki sighed. He had figured that Phoenix would have guessed this. She's someone who's a lot sharper than for white most give her credit. "I did," he agreed with her. "Where's Astra?"

"She's lying down for her nap," Phoenix said quickly. "You weren't just friends with Amora, were you?" When he shook his head, she sat down. "Why did you feel the need to lie to them?"

"My exact relationship with Amora isn't any of their business," Loki told her, looking away. If Phoenix didn't know any better, she'd say that a blush was creeping up in his cheeks. "It's not pertinent to the situation, anyway, Phe."

"Why didn't you stand up for her?" Phoenix asked him. What had she done that been so grievous that he wouldn't stand with her, but he had stood with Phoenix before? Despite having an instant dislike of her, Phoenix highly doubted that she was morally above Amora. Thousands of years of history could be sighted for that.  
"She wanted to wipe out the entire royal family but me," Loki explained to her. "As mad as I've ever been at my family, I don't think I ever seriously wanted to kill them, not even Thor. I think if I had actually killed Thor, I would have only gotten worse. Plus, then I was in much better standing with them as opposed to later." He looked away. "I suffered enough for my association with both of them, anyway."

"Ah, another session of 'Asgard justice,'" Phoenix said with a roll of her eyes. "Those people are ridiculously medieval." The scars on his back had healed, but they had taken longer than Phoenix had expected. She was sure that something extra had been done to make sure of that.

"That was the time that my lips were sewn shut, so yes, I think I would agree," Loki said quietly.

Phoenix's eyes went wide and the color drained from her face. "You're shitting me," she said. When he shook his head, she blanched. "I've done some _amazingly_ horrific things in my time, but that's just awful!"

Loki shook his head again. "They thought that I was plotting with them. You aren't supposed to kill a member of the royal house of Asgard, even if he is _adopted_, so they thought that it was a fitting punishment."

"How old were you when this was done?" she asked him. "What life stage?"

He thought on it for a moment. "I think the Midgardian equivalent would be about seventeen or so," he said, not sounding sure.

"And people on this planet are worried about hurting their children if they spank them," she grumbled. "I never was one for torture, Loki, even when I do kill. It's...distasteful. What's been done to you is a bit beyond punishment, don't you think? It hits the realm of torture to sew a person's lips shut."

"We weren't brought up the same way, Phe," he said softly to her. "It was just...apart of my life to be that way."

"Sometimes it sucks to be the older one in the relationship. I wasn't 'brought up,' remember?" she reminded him. "I'm still pretty sure that I never had a childhood." She giggled. "How's it feel to be with someone around your parents' age?"

"Don't put it that way, love," he said, seemingly thankful she was making jokes to ease the tension. "That just makes it sound creepy." He sat down on the floor in front of her, resting his head on her knees. "Are we OK?" he asked, tilting his head up to look at her.

"We're fine," she said, reaching down and running her fingers through his dark hair. "Do we really need to make a list of everyone who holds a grudge against you?"

He shook his head. "This is it, unless Thor pulls a 'me' and tries to take over the world."

Phoenix laughed. "Somehow, I don't see that happening," she admitted to him.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two: The She-Bitch of Asgard

Despite making things better with Loki, Phoenix was still a bundle of nerves right now. She was quickly realizing that this was something that she did not enjoy about being a part of the 'good' team. All of the waiting for something bad to happen was driving her insane. She liked being the one to attack first, but she knew so little about her enemy, much less where to find her. She thought that there might be one way to find out more, but it meant pumping a source.

After dropping Astra off with Jane for a few hours, she managed to hunt Thor down at SHIELD headquarters. She actually found him in the 'mess hall' of the place, eating through what she was sure was at least his second lunch. Quietly, she sat down in front of him at his table, pushing a box of strawberry Poptarts his way.

He looked up at her quizzically. "Is this a gift, dear sister?" he asked her.

"More like a bribe," she admitted. Thor wasn't half as dumb as she sometimes liked to pretend. He was actually pretty keen on reading people when they least expected it. "I want to know more about Amora and Skrull. Stuff that Loki wouldn't necessarily say, since Amora's his ex...girlfriend or whatever you call them on Asgard."

"How long did it take for him to admit that to you?" Thor asked, putting his fork down. Even though she seemed to have quelled his appetite, he still pulled the box of Poptarts over to himself. They didn't keep Poptarts here after one disastrous attempt to give Thor a gift of a cafeteria full of them one time by her and Loki. Apparently, too many agents had complained.

"Not long. It's hard to hide things from a prying wife," Phoenix admitted with a slight smile. "But I'm sure that there's still stuff that he's leaving out. Things that he thinks will hurt my feelings or something. I want to know everything about them that you at least know." She understood that obviously, Thor wouldn't know everything, but he had to know more than she did right now.

"They were close, very close," Thor started. "Even though my brother and I were very close as children, he had always felt uncomfortable around my friends. He was more studious and always had an interest in magic, and my friends were...more like me."

"Full of want of war and little patience for anything else?" Phoenix asked him, still smiling.

Thor returned her smile. "Yes, exactly. I wanted to slay all of our enemies with a simple 'hack and slash' as some Midgardians say, but Loki wanted to study them and go simply for the weak points. That is something that has changed little." His face grew more serious again. "Amora was a child that grew up with us. She and Loki became friends very easily. They trained their magical abilities together as they grew up. If Loki was the best sorcerer in Asgard, she was his close second. When they hit their pre-adult years, their relationship progressed past childhood friendship." Thor looked away. "I am sure you understand my meaning."

"You're not going to break me by telling me that my husband had a first love, Thor," Phoenix explained quickly. "I'm not a child."

"He loved her...deeply," Thor went on. "I am sure even you know how deeply a first love can burn. It is the first that you experience without the black marks on your heart that pain will cause. Those that are the luckiest will never have to go beyond that love, but those are few and far between."

Phoenix sighed, placing an elbow on the table and cradling her chin in her hand. "Alright, Marlowe, I get it," she told him sharply. "What happened exactly to get them banished?"

"Marlowe? I do not understand," Thor said.

Damn, she knew that using any sort of reference could get Thor distracted, but she had done it anyway. "He's a poet. Don't worry about it," she told him, motioning for him to continue.

"Ah yes," he said, nodding. "The hardest part to discuss. Amora has always been...power hungry. She wanted to be the best, and eventually she thought that the best meant being ruler of Asgard as well. She wanted to overthrow our family and place herself on the throne, with Loki at her side. Loki had always felt like an outsider, even before he knew of his true heritage, and he loved her, so I understand that the choice for him was hard. Unfortunately, before he fully decided, our father found out about the plan. He brought all three of them in front of the entire court to question them."

"He felt that Loki wasn't truly involved, but he was still upset that Loki hadn't come to him straight away," Thor continued. "I believe that is why he gave Loki the punishment that he did. The Allfather was upset."

"The lip sewing," Phoenix threw in.

"Yes, but I am sure that he did not mention who it was that did it," Thor told her. "Father had me do it. He told me later that he did that because he wanted me to learn that I will have to punish a person when I am king, no matter how close to them I am, if they did something wrong. At the time, I thought Loki had done no wrong, only been in the wrong situation at the wrong time. I still believe that." He sighed. "I think that is the day that Loki started to look at Father and me differently."

Phoenix frowned when she heard that _Thor_ was the one who had done the sewing. She understood that he had done it because the Odin had ordered him to, and more people fighting against Odin would have just been bad. Still, that was an awful thing to do to your brother. It was no wonder that Loki failed to mention who had done it. "You're probably right," she told him. "Is there anything else?"

Thor nodded. "Before she and Skrull were banished, Amora swore vengeance on everyone, Loki included. I assume that she felt that he had betrayed her by not going through with the plan, or even standing up for her. He barely said anything during the whole ordeal, and I only sewed his lips shut afterward. I do not know how she got away from where she was banished to, but I assume that time has only deepened her anger toward Loki."

"Astra saw the two of them fighting in the middle of a heated magical battle," Phoenix supplied. "I can only guess that you are right." She stood up. "Thank you for sharing with me. It was something that I needed to hear." Right now, she wanted to be alone with her thoughts, though. There was still plenty about which to think. If this was really going to happen, they needed a plan of attack, and to find a way to find Amora and Skrull. Phoenix didn't like the idea of waiting for Amora to attack, and she wasn't going to sit by the sidelines waiting for it to happen.

OoOoOoOo

Tony was at work in his lap, working on one of his many projects. He wasn't exactly sure what was going on with the new enemy situation (or very old enemy, as this person seemed to stem from Loki's childhood), so he figured that the best thing that he could do right now was work on something and keep his brain busy.

What he wasn't expecting to happen was for Astra and Socks to appear at his feet in the lab, especially since they weren't even supposed to be in the building. He jolted slightly, looking down at her. "Do your parents know that you're here?" he asked her, picking her up and setting her on the table where he was sitting. Luckily, he was only working on a blueprint, so there wasn't anything up there that would hurt her.

She shook her head. "Momma and Daddy are worried," she said with a pout. The cat jumped on the table beside her, curling up in her lap. "Why are they worried, Puppy Tony?"

He bit his tongue to keep himself from correcting her from calling him that. "It's about that vision you saw, kiddo. Someone that your dad pissed off when he was a kid might be coming back to raise some hell." Tony really had no filter and couldn't keep himself from swearing around a kid, even if he knew that Pepper would beat him and Astra's parents might do something worse. Still, kid was smart. He never felt the need to dumb things down for her. He reached over and stroked Socks behind his ears, listening to him purr for a moment. "I think your parents are worried that the She-Bitch of Asgard might try and come after you."

"I'm not afraid of the She-Bitch of Asgard," Astra said, repeating the name that Tony had called her.

Tony cracked up. "Shit, PLEASE don't say that name in front of anyone else, please," he said her, laying his head down on the table beside her as he continued to laugh. "Pepper alone would kill me, much less your own parents." Even if it WAS funny as hell that she said that.

Tony turned his head in time to see Socks the cat pick up his paw and bat Tony on the head, claws retracted, thankfully. "Yeah, I know, shouldn't teach the kid bad words," Tony said to the cat. It was actually amazingly easy for him to accept that Socks was some kind of magical watch cat for Astra. His life was already insane. What was one more weird thing?

"Come on, kiddo," Tony said, sitting up and standing, picking both Astra and the cat up. Socks moved around and perched on his shoulder while he held Astra. "I'm not getting any work done in here with you around, so I might as well take you to the kitchen and call your parents. I'd rather not get a flaming sword shoved up my ass by your mother." Socks batted him on the head again. "Hey! I can't change who I am just because Astra's around! She usually doesn't pick most of it up, anyway." As he walked out of the room, Socks smacked him on the head again. "Stop that, damnit!"

OoOoOoOo

Phoenix hadn't been too shocked to walk into Stark Tower just in time to see Tony coming from the back, holding Astra while being continuously smacked in the head by Socks. "Now what did you do to anger him?" she asked, taking the cat off Tony's shoulders and holding onto him.

"Puppy Tony told me about the She-Bitch of Asgard!" Astra exclaimed, giggling a little.

"So I see!" Phoenix said with a rather frightening grin. "Aren't you supposed to be with your Aunt Jane? She got rather worried about you when you disappeared."

"Aunt Jane wouldn't tell me anything," Astra said with a pout. "Puppy Tony tells me everything!"

"That is quite obvious," Phoenix said. She turned Socks toward her face. "Loki's already at home. Make sure that the two of you get there in one piece?" The cat actually nodded, jumping on the floor and butting his head against Tony's leg until he set Astra down. Before their eyes, Astra reached down and touched Socks, and the two of them teleported away. "I'm actually here for a practical matter, but try to not teach my child curse words, if you don't mind."

"She usually doesn't copy what I say," Tony said sheepishly, running his hand through his hair. "I mean, I swear all the time, but that's the first time she's repeated anything back. I think she likes this Amora chick about as much as you guys do."

Phoenix sighed. "I get that feeling myself," she said. Phoenix sometimes felt that her daughter was an old soul trapped in a toddler's body. She figured that Socks told her many things when they weren't around, too. "Do you think you can track her like you can Loki and me?" she asked. "I hate the idea of waiting around for her to attack us. It seems so...boring."

Tony nodded. "If her magic is similar to Loki's, then I could probably cook up something with Bruce," he told her. "Anything that Loki can fill us in on would help a lot, though."

She smiled, reaching over and ruffling his hair. "I'll make sure that he stops by and helps you two out," she told him. "The quicker that you work on it, the better, though." She turned away from him then, heading for the door. "Try to be good."

When she was gone, he headed off, trying to hunt down Bruce. It wasn't too hard. The scientist was locked away in his room. Knocking on the door, Tony punched in the code and made his way in without waiting for an answer.

Bruce was reading a book. He looked up, ready to complain, but stopped for some reason. "Wow...that's an interesting look, Tony," he said, a slight smile on his face. "Feeling a bit punkish today?"

"What?" Tony asked. He turned toward a mirror in the room, and saw that his hair was bright orange. It was actually the same orange that Phoenix's eyes turned when she did the rare thing and changed forms. "Shit! I should have known that she did something. Damn Loki, teaching her magic."

"What did you do?" Bruce asked, setting his book aside.

"I...might have taught Astra to call that Amora chick 'She-Bitch of Asgard,'" Tony grumbled under his breath.

"Then you deserved it," Bruce said, letting out a small laugh. "What do you want, anyway? Other than to show off your fabulous new hair."

"Phoenix actually asked if we could figure out a way to track Amora like we do with her and Loki," he said, still looking in the mirror. He doubted that hair dye would fix this. "Amora is some kind of magic user, so hopefully we can use the same stuff we track Loki with. He's supposed to come by tomorrow to help us out."

"Maybe he'll be willing to fix that hair for you," Bruce said.

"I'm wearing a hat until Phoenix is less pissed," Tony groused, leaving the room.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three: Time to Suit Up

Bruce and Tony had done some experimentation on Loki to see if they could figure out a way to track Amora, and, while Tony had begged for Loki to change his hair back, Loki had refused based on the idea that he was sure Phoenix would do it when she thought that he had been punished enough. When Tony asked what he was supposed to do when he had to appear in public, Loki suggested wearing a hat.

It had taken a couple of days of experimentation, but Bruce and Tony finally figured out a way to track Amora. They hoped that it would at least allow for them to pinpoint a general location. Loki said that her magic was similar to his, as they had grown up together learning the same things. It made enough sense to Tony that he was willing to go with it, anyway.

"You prove to me that you can track this She-Bitch, as you called her, and I will turn your hair back to its regular color," Phoenix promised Tony when he called her and Loki over to test his tracker. "We really need this to work."

Tony, who had been hiding his hair underneath a hat like suggested, nodded his head. He knew that, despite her playful words, he could hear the nervousness in her voice. She likely wanted this woman found for more reasons than just because she could destroy the world like every other villain. He was still fairly certain that she had the idea that the world would stay the way it was until **she** decided it should change, anyway. She and Loki both seemed the type to think that way. No, there was something personal to this that he didn't quite get, although he personally suspected that there was more to Loki and Amora's relationship than Loki, Phoenix, or even Thor were letting on. Thor was oddly tight lipped about it as well when Tony asked.

"Don't worry, this will work, as long as your honey supplied the right info," Tony insisted. Tony knew that his stuff worked, after all. He just needed to make sure that the info that Loki had given was good. He knew Loki had a frost giant heritage that might mess with the results, as Amora was at least supposedly just a normal Asgardian like Thor. He hoped that didn't make the results go haywire.

"You got the info that you need to know," Phoenix said to him. "Now turn the damn thing on! I want to get rid of this woman already."

"Someone's touchy today," Tony remarked with a grin. "Not get your coffee this morning?"

"Unlike you, some people can function just fine on their own, without coffee constantly running through their veins," Bruce remarked. Along with Loki, the four of them were gathered in the lab together. Tony supposed that he should be irritated that Loki and Phoenix could pop in and out of the place at their own will (Phoenix even seemed to be able to enter the door even when he had it on lockdown, a trick supplied from her days at SHIELD, he supposed), but he had long given up on caring about that.

"Yeah, whatever," Tony said with a wave of his hand. Before another argument could break out (and this time with Tony ending up with pink hair or something god awful), he flipped the switch on the tracker, wanting to get this woman found just so that his friend would get out of her foul mood. The machine fired up, bringing up a holographic map of the world in front of them, running scans across it. It took a few minutes, as Tony expected that it would, before it was able to pinpoint anything.

"It's zeroing in on Europe," Phoenix said aloud, but Tony kept his eyes on the image in front of him. Once it started searching, it didn't take it long at all. First, it closed in on Europe, then France, and finally, Paris.

"Well, she certainly picked a busy place to set up shop," Bruce said, pulling off his glasses and rubbing his eyes. "I thought villains like lairs out in the middle of nowhere where they wouldn't be disturbed."

Loki shook his head. "No, after all her time where she was, she would want to be right in the middle of things," he said to them.

"If she's as much of an attention whore as you were, then I think that we won't have to look far for her," Tony said, staring up at the map. Phoenix elbowed him in the ribs. "What? It's not a lie. I only have two words for the both of you: Stuttgart, Germany," Tony said with a triumphant grin.

"No less rude," Phoenix pointed out to him, flicking the back of his head with her fingernail. "I really should send you to manners school or something to make you less abrasive."

"Pepper tried to get him some training once," Bruce commented. "I heard that he simply slept with the tutor."

"Color me shocked," Phoenix said, deadpan, ignoring Tony's smirk as she looked back up at the map. "When can we go and find her."

"Soon as you're ready," Tony said, finally turning away from the screen. "Steve told everyone to stand by when I told him that the tracker was ready."

"Give us an hour," Phoenix said. Tony could only assume that she wanted to check on Astra and make sure that she was well taken care of. Before he could say anything, though, she held onto Loki's arm and the both of them teleported out of the room.

"Sometimes I wonder if the two of them can talk to each other in their minds or something," Tony remarked. "Then again, Loki seems to be good at hiding secrets."

"So they're like any other married couple then," Bruce remarked. "Come on. Let's suit up."

OoOoOoOo

"Are you sure that you're OK with watching Astra while we're gone?" Phoenix and Loki had only teleported out of the room for dramatic effect. Tony was right; the both of them really were kind of drama whores. They had only ended up in the kitchen where Pepper had been. She had her own apartment, of course, but if she were sitting around and watching Astra, it would be more secure if she sat with her at Stark Tower. Jane would be coming by soon as well, so she wouldn't even be alone.

"It'll be no problem," Pepper reassured her. "Just make sure that she knows that teleporting in and out isn't exactly a good idea right now, OK?" Phoenix could tell that Pepper was feeling a bit nervous about that, which she completely understood. "I can't exactly go all over the building searching for her."

"I'll make sure that she knows that she shouldn't teleport around," Loki reassured Pepper. Other than Jane and Pepper, no one else was going to be here. Loki picked up Astra, who was standing at their feet now, to explain to her that she shouldn't teleport around and scare people.

As he talked to Astra, Phoenix pulled Pepper aside. "If anything comes up, do call, OK? Anything at all." Phoenix just had some sinking feeling in her stomach that something might happen, even as she told herself that she was being ridiculous. She knew that she was just being paranoid or something. They were going off to deal with this ridiculous woman Amora and they should be back in a few days, tops.

As soon as Loki released Astra, she ran over and wrapped her small arms around her mother's legs. "Do you have to go?" she asked, looking up and turning those big blue eyes up at Phoenix. Phoenix needed to master that look. Then she really could rule the world.

Phoenix lifted Astra up in her arms. "Mommy and Daddy have to go deal with something again," she said, pushing her daughter's hair out of her face. Then should get it cut soon.

"To deal with the She-Bitch?" Astra asked, and Phoenix had to bite back a laugh as Jane choked and Pepper hid her face with her hands.

"You can thank Tony for that nickname," Phoenix said, looking back at the two women with a roll of her eyes. She could hear the both of them muttering about how that must be why Tony's hair was orange for a while. "Yes, dear," she said, looking back at her daughter. "We're going to go and take care of her, OK?" She pressed her lips against Astra's forehead before setting her back down. "Try to be good, OK?" Her daughter nodded, heading to a corner and sitting down, pulling Socks into her lap.

"That doesn't make me feel better about this," Phoenix said, having half a mind to stay here herself. Pepper and Jane were great, but they weren't exactly strong in a physical sense. Still, before she could think on it took hard, Loki had her hand and was tugging her out the door. Everything would be all right.

OoOoOoOo

Getting to Paris hadn't been any real sort of problem. Loki and Phoenix teleported, Tony and Thor flew, and the rest flew along in the quinjet. Therefore, Loki and Phoenix got the fun jobs of recon before everyone else arrived. Phoenix complained a lot, but she was also nervous about leaving Astra back in New York. She had to admit that there was some feeling in the pit of her stomach that told her that she should have stayed. She wasn't psychic, so she only assumed that it was just some sort of motherly worry. She didn't exactly have anything to base it off of, other than some interactions she had seen over the years, and how she had seen Frigga with Thor and Loki. It was really just a guess.

The 'tracking' that they had done lead all of them toward a large apartment in the middle of the city. "You weren't kidding when you said that she liked to live in style," Phoenix grumbled. She could look at the outside and see that it was one of the most expensive in the city. "I wonder how she paid for it."

"The same way I used to pay for things, I would suppose," Loki said, grinning. "By not."

Phoenix laughed and rolled her eyes. "Right, I forget that you can do such things easily when you have magic." She had certainly stolen her fair share of things in her life, but having magic and making people forget that things had ever been stolen was certainly quite handy.

Of course, now she had SHIELD to take care of most of her monetary needs. She had several bank accounts hidden away as well, but she found that she really needed them less and less. The salary that she drew from SHIELD seemed to take care of everything, now, even with a young child and a cat who seemed more than content to eat her out of house and home.

She tilted her head up to the place that Amora seemed to be staying. "So...we should probably wait, shouldn't we?" she asked, staring up at the apartment.

"Well, yes, of course. It's better to wait for the backup of a team," Loki explained. "Especially with the strength that I know Amora still has." He had looked up at the apartment as well, and, when he looked back down, he realized that Phoenix had disappeared, likely heading inside. "Damn." Sometimes she really was just a little too much like his brother for her own good.

He ended up heading halfway up the stairs before he caught her, grabbing her and pulling her into a random hallway. They were about halfway up the building, and Loki was thankful that she had decided to take the stairs rather than the elevator. "We Ireally/I shouldn't go in without back up," he reiterated to her.

She sighed. "Come on, Loki. I just want to see her. I won't engage her yet," she grumbled.

"No, you want to throw her through a window," he corrected. "Remember how you said you know when I'm lying? I know when you are as well," he pointed out, narrowing his eyes at her.

She waved at him. "Fine fine. I want to chuck the woman out of the top of her pretty little apartment and be done with her," she grumbled. "She frightened our daughter. That alone makes me want to attack her. The fact that she wants to come after you as well doesn't exactly help with the anger."

"Well the cavalry is here, so you guys can stop gushing about emotions now." Phoenix jumped when she heard Stark's voice in her ear.

"Did you stop and run through a drive through?" she snapped, having to stop herself from looking around for him. His voice was directly in her ear. She couldn't get used to the little communication devices that went in her ears. "What took so long?"

"Not everyone can teleport around that easily," Tony said to her. "Where are you guys?"

She gave him the address. "I would ask for you to try and get here discretely, but I highly doubt that can happen, what with the suit and all."

"I don't do subtle, Firebug," Tony retorted, and Phoenix made a face at the nickname. She HATED it when he called her things like that, which just seemed to make him do it more. "I'll come in through the roof. I know it's hard, but try to wait for everyone else, wherever you guys are at. You know Cap hates it when we barge in without a plan."

"Alright," Phoenix said with a groan. If Tony Stark was telling her to wait for back up, then she supposed that she really needed to do so, even if all she wanted to do was rush up there and tear the woman's head off.

They waited a bit, and Phoenix was just starting to lose her patience when her come crackled to life again, and she heard Steve's voice filter through. "Where are you guys?" she heard him ask. When she gave him the address and explained that Tony was waiting on the roof, she heard him explain that they had to ditch the Quinjet and then they would be along as well. The plan that they discussed while the Quinjet was being dealt with was easy enough. Phoenix thought that it was stupidly easy and likely a bad idea, but no one else seemed to agree with her.

Then again, sometimes it was the stupid, easy plans that ended up working.


	4. Chapter 4

(Author's Note: So glad to be back! My big ficathon is wrapped up, so I'm back to regular updating again. I can't wait to put up my fic for that, but it has to be 'revealed' first, but, when I'm able, I will post here what kept me away for most of a month. Anyway, on with the show!)

Chapter Four: We Went Soft

The plan seemed to be to simply converge on Amora all at once and hope to overpower her that way. They were also hoping that Skurge was off doing...something else. Yes, it wasn't a terribly great plan, and several of them said so over their intercoms that were in their ears, but Rogers simply asked if anyone had a better plan. When no one did, everyone decided to roll with it instead.

Loki and Phoenix decided to take the most direct of routes and simply teleport into the bitch's apartment. It had to be because she was an ex of Loki's. That had to be why she wanted this woman banished or simply obliterated in some way. Obliterated into space dust would be an acceptable way to deal with Amora.

When they arrived in the apartment, Phoenix scanned the immediate area. "She really does have expensive tastes," she said, turning to look around the room. It was a living room decked out in fall colors and plush fabrics.

"What, should I be hiding out in a cave?" a light, young voice called out from behind the two of them. Phoenix and Loki turned around, both spotting Amora at the same time, sitting atop a table with her legs crossed in front of her. "I'm sure that you could give me a few tips on how to decorate a cave and make it homey, though."

"Sweet mother of Buddha, you look like Tinkerbelle," Phoenix said with a snort. The small green dress left her shoulders bare and the skirt blared out at her hips. If she had wings, it would complete the look. "Your ex-girlfriend is Tinkerbelle?" She started to giggle a bit.

"Enough of this," Amora snapped. Phoenix wasn't sure if either of them understood the 'Tinkerbelle' reference, but they both seemed to get that it was an insult, both from Amora's angry face and the barely hidden smirk on Loki's face. "Tell me, exactly what did you think would happen today?"

Before Loki or Phoenix could answer, the window was blown in, and Tony, in his full Iron Man regalia, flew in, dropping on the side of Amora. "We're here to kick your ass, Tink," he told her, blasters raised.

"Seriously? I'm not the only one that sees that? That's great," Phoenix said while grinning.

She was distracted enough that Loki had to grab her and force her to duck when Amora threw a ball of magic directly at her head. Tony fired his blasters at her, but she had teleported out of the way. "You'll have to explain this Tinkerbelle to me later," Loki said with a smirk.

"Well, I meant to tell her that she was a slutty Tinkerbelle on top of it, but she got pissy before I could," Phoenix explained, unsheathing her sword and standing back up. "Come on out you Pixie Bitch! I forgot to mention to Loki that I don't like my men having messy, crazy exes. I tend to kill them."

As Phoenix used her sword to block another energy blast from Amora, Tony looked at Loki. "Does she mean any of that?" he asked.

"Do you really have any doubt?" Loki asked him right back.

Tony nodded. "Not in the least. Glad she's not my wife. She'd be too busy killing off the exes to actually have fun with me."

"Keeping thinking of 'fun' with my wife and I'll throw you through another window," Loki snapped, grabbing Tony's suit art and yanking him out of the way of another magic blast. It seemed that Amora had split herself into a double to fight them. "No rest for the wicked, then," Loki said, pulling out his staff and going after the double.

"Don't I get a pretty pixie to play with?" Tony asked right before being knocked through a wall by a magic blast from both of the Amora's at once.

OoOoOoOo

By the time that Widow, Hawkeye, Thor, Banner, and Rogers arrived, something was amiss. Amora was keeping them quite busy, but it was just her around. According to Loki, Amora never went very far without the Skurge hanging around her, sniffing at her coattails. (He had supposedly been in love with her for years.) As soon as someone relayed that to the Captain, though, Amora started to laugh, wiping her small hand at her pert little mouth, removing the sliver of blood.

"Did you really think that I would be here alone?" she asked. "That I would be so easy to capture?"

Furious, Phoenix grabbed Amora by her throat, pinning her to a remaining wall (they had destroyed her apartment), aiming her sword at the Enchantress's throat. "If you do not be clear, I will cut off your head right here."

"If you kill me," Amora croaked out, "you won't be finding your daughter any time soon."

Not removing the hand from Amora's neck, she moved the sword away and threw the sword, embedding it into a nearby chunk of wall. Flames started to crawl up her arms as she now put both hands against Amora's neck. "Now, let me ask you again. What is going on here? Where is the Skurge?"

Amora jolted slightly when the flames started to lick at her hair. "My, aren't you a little pyromaniac! Stop that and I'll tell you what is going on!" The flames drifted back slightly and Phoenix loosened her grip on Amora's neck a bit, but she didn't let her go at all.

"Talk!" Phoenix snapped, rattling Amora's head against the wall.

"You left my Skurge back in New York, dearie!" Amora told her. "I'm quite amazed that not even one of you thought to leave someone there to protect the helpless."

Phoenix heard Banner roar behind her, and had an idea. "Hey, Hulk!" she called to him. She still wondered if the Hulk saw her as a teammate. He had attacked her husband once, after all. "Smash this for me, please?" she asked, holding up Amora by the scruff of her neck. Hulk grinned at her and snatched Amora up like a rag doll, swinging her about.

Amora dealt with for now, Phoenix grabbed Loki. "Teleport. NOW." She knew that she should have stayed, and now they had to deal with the consequences.

The Captain tossed her the sword just as Loki grabbed her around her waist, teleporting them away. When they arrived back at the tower, it was in disarray. Socks was running about, hobbling around on three of his legs while he held the fourth up as if it would not support weight. She picked Socks up, cradling him to her chest, taking a small bit of comfort as she rubbed her face in his fur. "Where are the rest?" she asked him, and Socks picked up his head and pointed down the hallway.

She and Loki ran down it while she carried Socks. Pepper and Jane were in the room. Jane was crying while Pepper was trying to comfort her. "This massive giant of a man broke in past all security," Pepper told her as she stroked Jane's hair. Loki motioned for her to continue. "He took Astra...I'm so sorry. We should have been able to do more."

"No, I should have stayed like I initially wanted to," Phoenix said, backing out of the room. How _stupid_ did she have to be to leave her young child alone with two wonderful yet unfortunately mundane women? She should have known better than that.

Leaving them to Loki, Phoenix walked away with Socks still in her arms. She headed toward the elevator and eventually ended up on the roof, tearing the comm out of her ear when she heard someone's voice squawking at her in it. When she reached the roof, she sat down on the ledge, letting her feet dangle off.

She pulled Socks closer, burying her face in his fur again as she started to sob, wondering to herself if she'd ever find her child again. She had thought that taking the first directly to them had been the right thing to do, but it now appears that they had walked right into some sort of trap. She never should have fallen for such cheap chicanery, and now her daughter was paying the price for her getting soft around all of these 'friends' of hers. If it were just her and Loki, she never would have been this stupid.

OoOoOoOo

Of all the clichéd things in the world, it had started to rain while Phoenix had been sitting on the roof of the tower, but she paid it no mind. One of the things that gave Socks away as a not completely normal cat was that he did not care about the water nor did he care about the woman holding him a touch too tightly.

If anyone else had come up to Phoenix right now, she would not have noticed, but she had to hear Stark flying by her, still in his armor. She heard the clank of the metal as he handed and walked over, sitting beside her. "We have Amora in a cell on the Helicarrier," he said, not looking over at her. When she peeked out of the corner of her eye around the fur, she could see that he was staring blankly ahead.

"I'm not gonna pretend that I understand what it's like to have a kid kidnapped. I know what it's like to have a parent that claims that they will not negotiate with terrorists, though." She could almost see the memories behind that statement of a scared young man who only wanted to go home, but a father willing to risk him so that he wouldn't have to put out the moment. "You shouldn't be that way, though. I can't begin to describe what it feels like to think that your parents don't love you enough to give the money or whatever it is that they want."

"I'm sorry that your father simply thought of you as a commodity that he didn't want to spend the money on," she said to him, starting to pet the cat in her hands. "If this were a simple exchanging of money, I would happily hand over everything that I had to get her back." She lifted her head up and looked at Tony. "This isn't about that. This is revenge, and I'm going to find my child and then tear the bitch to pieces when I do."

"Glad to hear that," Tony said to her. "I think Hulk wants a crack at Skurge. I think Hulk has the same feelings toward Astra that Bruce does. He smashed Amora up _way_ worse than he did to Loki that one time." Tony cracked a smile, although at what memory Phoenix did not know.

"Hulk can rip Skurge limb from limb all he wants," Phoenix said with a nod. "Where is my husband?"

"Downstairs in the room he and Hulk first met," Tony told her, standing. "Hand me Socks. Someone needs to set that leg."

"Be careful with him," she said. "I believe he did his best to protect Astra, Pepper, and Jane."

"Yeah, Pep said something about him spitting out fireballs," Tony explained. "Just what IS your cat?"

"My best guess is a warlock who accidentally got stuck in a shape shifting form," Phoenix said with a shrug. "Until he learns how to talk, I have no idea how to figure out who he is." She stroked Socks behind the ears. "Now how I of all people had to accidentally conjure him, I'll never know."

She and Tony headed in together, although he turned off at the med bay while she kept going to the front room. She had remembered being in here with Loki, taunting Tony about how they were going to rule this planet while he drank confidently from his bar. Tonight, however, Loki seemed to have made himself comfortable at the bar, sitting there with a bottle of what had to be very expensive scotch. "Do you realize what it would take to get us drunk?" she asked him, sitting down on the floor next to him.

"Tonight I'm willing to try and find out," Loki said. Despite what she knew had to be a strong constitution, he was already slurring his words. Of course, Tony bought only the finest liquor to stock his many bars.

Phoenix reached up and pulled a bottle at random, finding an expensive bottle of vodka in her hands. It was as good as anything else was. She opened the top, pouring some of it down her throat without a second thought. "We fucked up," she said. "We should have seen this coming. I think we've gone soft, Loki."

Loki chuckled into the bottle as he took another sip. "I am glad that I was not the only one who thought the same," he admitted. "I should have seen that trick a mile away. I'm fairly certain I _played_ that exact trick, or at least something so similar I should have seen through it."

"We should have at least left more than Pepper, Jane, and a cat who can spit fireballs with her," she contended.

"We really should find out just who Socks really is, or was," Loki said. "He's certainly far more than a simple familiar, after all."

"I think that he's a warlock trapped by a shape shifting spell," Phoenix offered, taking another long sip of her bottle. "That would explain why he can both teach Astra spells and is apparently able to do them on his own."

"If that's the case, I may be able to undo it then," Loki replied. "He might be able to give us a less fear tainted account of what happened, too."

She nodded. It was something. She doubted that the magical tracker would be of any help now. Amora and Skurge were likely no longer on this plane of existence. Learning what Socks had truly seen would be something more than they had now. "Where do you think they took her?" she asked, turning to Loki.

"Somewhere that we cannot easily follow," he explained to her. "I don't think they would hurt her, though. Amora likes children. I believe that simply having her away from us was all of her plan."

"God I hope so. I'm not sure that I can deal with anything more right now," Phoenix admitted to him.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five: Jinxed

While Loki worked with Tony and Bruce on a possible way to track where Skurge had absconded off to with her daughter, Phoenix thought to take a different approach. SHIELD had locked Amora away on the helicarrier, in a similar cage like one that had once housed Loki. It seemed that now the situation had drastically reversed itself. She and Loki were on the outside while someone else was on the in.

Phoenix had seen the video of Natasha's interrogation of Loki before (it was easy to get Tony to hack into SHIELD and show it to her). She couldn't help but reflect on the similarity of the situations, although she wasn't on the side that she would have once expected after she initially aligned herself with Loki. Now she would be the one doing the interrogating, and she wouldn't even be using torture to get what she wanted. She simply wanted to talk.

Phoenix walked into the room with the glass cage, moving silently as Amora looked at her with curious eyes. She kept her eyes in front of her, grabbing a chair from the edge of the room and sitting it in front of the cage, sitting down in front of it, leaning back and crossing her legs as she stared at Amora for a moment, trying to collect her thoughts.

"Is there something you wanted?" Amora asked after Phoenix continued to stare at her for a few long moments. The woman was still in her 'Tinkerbelle' costume, as Phoenix mentally referred to the green outfit that she wore. She couldn't help but think that the woman looked ridiculous, but did people like Captain America look any less silly? Not likely. "Tips on how to please your husband, maybe?"

The sides of Phoenix's mouth tilted upward, but it wasn't a smile that was on her face. It more resembled a grimace. "To my understanding, you haven't been around him for about a thousand years, so I would think that any information you had on that would be a bit...outdated," Phoenix told her. "I'm not here to really talk about Loki...well, not directly. I'm actually here to talk about Skurge, your little buddy that's permanently in the friend zone because you can't get over an old flame."

Amora pressed her lips into a thin line as she narrowed her eyes and glared at Phoenix. "My Skurge is a great man. You should be honored that your daughter is in the presence of an honorable man like him." Her face moved back to more of a bland contentness. "She may learn some things from him that she couldn't learn from the people that you associate yourself with."

"An honorable man who attacks unarmed women and runs off with a child," Phoenix mused, tapping her finger against her lip, as if in thought.. "I've met some honorable men in my life, and none of them have ever done anything like that...I think that might make him a disastrously _dis_honorable man, dear Amora."

"This cage won't keep me forever, you know," Amora said, changing the subject. "I have ways that would allow for me to get out of here. Ways that you can only dream of." She gave a smile that would be frightening to some.

"If you had a way out, you would have done it by now," Phoenix pointed out. She hoped that was the case, at any rate. "Besides, we're not exactly clueless. This place? I'm told it was actually made to hold Loki at one point." Fury had told her that, if they captured them after she helped him escape from Asgard, they were going to put him in here. They had learned their lesson. Phoenix leaned to one side, tapping the walls. "Walls are made of iron dear. Magically draining." She settled back into the chair. "You could probably magic your way out of the cage...and right out into the open where someone could beat the hell out of you and put you back. I wouldn't recommend it."

Relaxing into the seat, she looked Amora over. "I know that you had to be able to feel it, so stop bluffing, please. Let's get serious here. What's the point of all this? Why not just fight Loki like a normal person? That not irrational enough for you?"

"He hurt me, so I wanted to find a way to hurt him," Amora said, smiling slightly again. "I thought about taking you at first, but that had been done before, so I went with something a little more original instead."

Phoenix rolled her eyes. "Was I this bad when I was a villain?" she asked, looking directly up at one of the cameras in the room. She was certain that at least Fury was watching this. "Please tell me that I wasn't this ridiculous." Sadly, she knew that she probably was. "Everyone wants some sort of vengeance, it seems. I think we all need to get a new story or something before it puts me to sleep."

"Oh don't worry," Amora said with a smile. "I think things will get exciting for you soon enough."

After that, Amora wouldn't say anything more, and finally, Phoenix was tired of only talking to herself and left, heading off to think. She wandered into one of the meeting rooms, finding Thor sitting alone. "Is Jane alright?" she asked him.

He nodded. "She is resting in one of the rooms here," he explained. "I thought that it would be best for her to stay in New York, but she did not want to be far away from me."

"A sentiment that I can understand after what happened," Phoenix said to him. "I should have stayed there, or had someone else stay there." She still felt utterly ridiculous for not realizing that Amora had set up a shop just so that they could be distracted. "I was stupid to think that Amora wouldn't have her Skurge show up in New York while we were all busy in Paris with her."

"Amora is an unpredictable force," Thor said. "To try and figure out what she is going to do is an exercise in futility."

"Let me guess, her mind is like a bag of cats?" Phoenix asked, the corners of her mouth turning up. Natasha's interrogation of Loki hadn't been the only thing that she watched, after all. She had seen much of the helicarrier footage. They all had, at different points. Tony had copies of everything, it seemed.

Thor smiled. "Something like that." He drummed his fingers on a table in front of him. "Do you think she will send Skurge to break her out of here?" he asked her.

"Probably," a voice, Fury's, came from behind them. Both Phoenix and Thor turned around to see the large man standing in the doorway. "Villains aren't known for being terribly creative, after all."

"I'm starting to think that you're right," Phoenix replied with a smile. "We are a terribly predictable lot. We get a hair up our ass over something, and then lash out at everything around us." It was depressing to realize that about herself. Even when simply craving oblivion, she had been something of a sad case herself.

"Yeah, from what I've seen, pretty much," Fury agreed. "Glad you and Loki aren't villains anymore. You're both smarter than that." She could almost see a hint of a smile on the man's face.

"Was that a compliment, oh fearless leader?" she asked him, grinning. Phoenix was pretty sure that she had never heard the man give anyone a compliment before just now.

"Yeah, but don't tell anyone," Fury said. "I've got a reputation to keep up." His face turned more serious again. "We've been searching everywhere that we can think of for Skurge. We've even contacted Asgard and Heimdall is searching for him as well. So far, nothing."

"There is no telling where they could be," Thor said, sighing. "There are many places that they could hide away in."

"Plus, it's only a matter of time before there's some sort of distraction sent to keep us busy as well," Phoenix commented.

"And now you've likely just jinxed us," Fury pointed out.

"I'm just saying what everyone is thinking, Director," she said with a sigh of her own.

OoOoOoOo

Phoenix spent a while staring out the windows of the helicarrier, mostly lost in thought. She was annoyed highly that no one seemed to be able to get anything out of Amora. Even Loki had eventually gone in to talk to her, and, while she couldn't make out what they were saying, she could hear the screaming clear across the helicarrier.

When he finally came out and found her, he looked very upset. Phoenix reached up for him, wrapping her arms around him and pressing her face into his neck. "Didn't go well?" she asked softly.

"Not in the least," he said, his arms going around her waist. "It was more rehashing of what went on a thousand years ago, the both of us getting angry, and her saying that she hoped I would never see our daughter again." He tightened his hold on her. "She's weakening in there. I don't think she can get out anymore, but I don't know if we'll be able to figure out where Skurge went without her help, either."

"Delightful," Phoenix said, leaning back against her man. "Do you regret how things happened with her?"

"I do not think that they could have happened any other way," Loki explained. "The only think I would have done different was make my intent to not go along even more clear. Maybe then she would have dropped the idea before things had gone too far."

"I think she was set on her plan whether you were a part of it or not," Phoenix explained. "She wants to blame you that they did not work, but it was a bad plan to begin with." Phoenix really was starting to see the utter futility of being a villain. The only thing she really got out of it was Loki, and for that, she was grateful, but it just seemed to cycle into eternity.

She let Loki hold onto her while she was lost in thought for a few seconds, not hearing the first couple of times that she and Loki's names were called. It took Natasha coming over and tapping them on the shoulder and saying that something had come up.

They were walked over to one of the screens, showing what looked to be like...something out of a B-horror movie. "Did someone leave it on the horror channel?" Tony asked, peaking around Phoenix and Loki.

"No, it appears to be very real," Fury said as everyone else gathered around.

"I think Amora might have been watching too many scary movies while she was hanging out in Paris waiting for us to come and get her," Clint commented as he watched the screens.

"I hope she watched Romero rather than 28 Days Later," Tony said quickly, making a face.

"What on _Earth_ are you guys talking about?" Rogers said, looking at the screen.

"It appears that Amora has found a way to raise the dead," Phoenix said with a sigh. "And New York is _crawling_ with them right now."

"If this was done by her, then they are called the Draugr," Thor explained. "Warriors risen up to continue fighting no matter what. They cannot be reasoned with; they cannot feel anything but the lust for the kill."

"Well, all we have to do is shoot them in the head, right?" Clint asked, actually watching from up in the rafters. "Shouldn't be no big deal."

"Actually, you have to cut off their head, burn the body, and spread the ashes into the sea," Loki explained, his voice deadpan.

"So, a little more complicated than shooting in the head," Bruce said. "Well, I know I can remove heads pretty easily. We can do this."

Phoenix had heard of the legend of the Draugr. Things fierce and nasty that, for every one of them you took out, they managed to take out twenty of your own men. She was not looking forward to dealing with this. "How long has this been going on?" she asked.

"First reports came in a few hours ago," Fury explained. "We sent in agents, thinking that Amora took priority, but, when they didn't report back, we realized that the situation was escalating quickly. So, here we are," he said with a sigh, "dealing with fucking Norse zombies."

"Yeah, ain't life grand," Tony said. "Today I learned that the Norse have their own brand of zombies that are harder to kill. Yay me."

"Could be worse," Clint remarked. "They could be fast, smart zombies."

"Let's not jinx things any further, please," Natasha asked.

"Yes, no more jinxing, if you please," Fury said.

Phoenix knew that she could do without anything else happening. "Are we heading back to New York then?" she asked. She didn't even think they were that far from there.

"Well, there are those of you who can fly, teleport, and basically get your own asses there," Fury pointed out, and he had a good point. "For those that can't, yeah, we're heading there."

Phoenix looked over at Loki. "Guess that means we're on first duty then," she remarked, smiling ever so slightly.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six: The Lure of the Flames

Phoenix had to admit that, for all the chaos that was currently going on in New York with bloody _zombies_ on the loose, she was glad that now she had something to do other than sit around and fret over her daughter. This gave her something to take her frustrations out on, and nothing got rid of a lot of your frustrations better than literally ripping the head off a body.

When she and Loki first teleported back to New York, they arrived on the large balcony of Stark Tower so that they had a good vantage point of what was going on, and what a vantage it was. The streets were in complete chaos, covered with burning cars, fleeing people, and corpses. A part of her was actually really amused by all the chaos going on around them. She supposed that some things would never change.

"This is certainly the work of Amora, somehow," Loki said as he looked down onto the streets with her. "I'm sure she set up some sort of contingency in case she was captured."

"Is it hard for you to kind of want to join in the chaos, or is it just me?" Phoenix admitted, turning and looking up at him.

Loki let out a sigh of relief. "Good, I'm not the only one feeling that," he said as he looked back down at her. It made Phoenix realize that they would always likely be at least somewhat destructive individuals. Right now they were at least mostly funneling it into what others might consider to be 'good,' but who was to say that would be the same in a hundred or so years?

"We should probably get down there before we get any real longing for the good old days," Phoenix pointed out. She couldn't help but once again compare this to their own try for New York. It was aliens rather than zombies, but it was still just as destructive.

He nodded, straightening up and looking back out that the hordes below. "Where do you think we should land below?" he asked, his staff appearing out of the ether. She knew that he had some sort of interdimensional pocket that he hid things in, but it was still fascinating every time he removed something from it.

"You know me," she said to him, unsheathing her sword, her armor materializing as she held it high. "Either we show up in the middle of things or what's the point?"

He grinned back at her. "That's the woman I know and love," he said, pulling her close so that they could teleport again to the street.

OoOoOoOo

As soon as Phoenix was on the ground, she broke into a run, swinging her sword at the first of the Draugr that came near her. Loki himself wanted to take the more calm approach, but as soon as one of the beasts came near him, he swung with his staff, more than ready to take out his own aggressions on whatever was around him. His aggressions **and** his insecurities, for he had to admit to himself that some of this chaos called to him. He was both relieved and worried that his wife felt some of the same call. With her at his side, somewhat wanting it as well, would he be able to resist? He wasn't so sure.

He actually felt relief when he saw Tony Stark soar above him in his suit. Thor would not be far behind, and then the rest would arrive on the Quinjet. Maybe have the others around would keep him and Phoenix both on the straight and narrow. She had bonded with several of them, and he was closer to his brother than he had been in years. Neither of them was alone any longer, and they didn't have only each other to depend on. Maybe that would keep them both toward what they _should_ be doing.

He heard Phoenix call out in triumph as she shopped the head off one of them. He really did love how she looked when fighting, armor moving, hair flying, eyes flashing. It would frighten a lesser man than he. She would terrify some, but not him. He loved her that way. Of course, thinking of that made him flashback on the last battle of New York, the last thing he needed to think about right now.

"Brother! Look behind you!" Loki hadn't even realized that Thor had arrived, lost in his own thoughts, but he was glad that he had, as he swung around, staff out, just in enough time to catch one of the Draugr who had been coming up on him. He put all of his frustrations and anxieties into pummeling anything dead that came near him. It would have to do for now.

He did smile as he heard his brother let out a battle cry of his own. It seemed that some things would never change, and his brother's love of a good battle would be one of them, even if the man himself got a modicum more mature. Just a little, though.

OoOoOoOo

Phoenix smiled when she pointed her sword to a row of zombies and fire jetting down the blade, shooting out toward the walking plague victims, setting them ablaze. Oh, fire wouldn't get rid of them until she took off the head, but that didn't mean that she couldn't have a bit of fun. She'd take off their heads soon enough. This was all highly entertaining to her.

She missed the next set with fire, though, instead hitting a car and watching as it exploded in a giant ball of flames. "Wanna watch your aim there, fire bug?" she heard Tony say in the comm in her ear.

"We'll buy that person a new one," she replied, adjusting her aim this time as she lit aflame another set of zombies. "It's not like SHIELD can't afford it, anyway. Plus, zombies. I think losing a few cars in wiping them out is still a win."

"But Fury does complain a lot when we destroy too many other things. Then again, he thinks that Hulk can stop tearing apart cars." As if in perfect timing, a car flew over Phoenix's head as Hulk threw it into a large group of zombies. "And yet the big green guy does get the job done," Tony added.

"I'll try to keep my aim sharp," Phoenix told him, swinging her sword and taking off the head of two zombies in one swing. The less she had to listen to Fury bitch, the better.

What should have been just a fun day of slaying zombies then quickly turned into something else, when Fury popped into her comm. "Just to let you guys know, Amora was sprung as well."

Phoenix groaned, and she heard several complaints from others in her ear as well. "I thought the whole 'iron room' thing would help keep her in place," she heard Steve say over the comm.

"Well, iron don't do much when a big hulking motherfucker shows up with an axe," Fury snapped back.

"And that would be Skurge," Loki told them. "I can only imagine that the two of them are bound for here soon enough."

"Stop saying things for dramatic timing!" Tony snapped over the comm. "The _last_ thing we need is for those two fuckers..." There was a large boom in the distance. "Could someone please shoot me now?"

"Come closer and I'll put you out of your misery," Natasha said. "Do you have a visual?"

"Tinkerbelle and big hulking motherfucker with an axe? Yeah, it's them," Tony replied, another explosion ringing through all of their intercoms. "We should probably regroup."

"And here I was having _so_ much fun," Phoenix said with a sigh.

Before they could regroup, though, Phoenix heard a sadly familiar laugh behind her. She turned to see Amora in the flesh, along with what was apparently her bodyguard. "Well if it isn't one half of my favorite couple," Amora purred to her. "Where's your better half, dearie?"

Phoenix didn't answer, instead aiming her sword toward the two of them and letting loose a line of fire, but it soared right through them. She was going to have to learn a trick from Loki about telling the difference between duplicates. "You know, Tink, this would go a lot better if you weren't such a whiny bitch and actually showed up to fight now and then," she complained aloud.

Amora's answer was a blast of magic from the side, hitting Phoenix in the ribs and knocking her into the side of a building, causing her to leave a rather large hole through the wall. Shaking the dust from her hair and blocking out the pain, she forced herself to stand. "You really shouldn't snipe at your betters!" Amora called out from in front of her now, on the other side of the hole. "If you do, you might get...," Amora was interrupted by a car being flung at her, knocking her clear out of the way.

Phoenix stuck her head out, spotting Bruce in his big, green glory. "Thanks, bud," she said, sending him a thumbs up. Hulk grinned in response before running off to fight more battles. Phoenix then turned her head in the direction that the car had sent Amora in. "I think my guard is better than yours!" she called out.

Phoenix then focused on her comm. "Does anyone know where Skurge is? I think Hulk just mostly flattened Amora with a car," she said.

"Back with me," she heard Steve say. "Good gracious this guy is fast. You wouldn't think a guy this big would be so fast."

"Bruce is fast. You're fast. You're just stereotyping," Phoenix replied. "Even Thor has his moments of speed, although most of those are while flying."

"I'm not normally the person who tells people to focus, but can we focus on the zombies here?" Clint asked. "They are trying to eat people." He paused. "Maybe try the regrouping thing again? Lead them down a chokepoint?"

"You guys are more military than me," Phoenix said with a shrug to herself. "Tell us where you want us." She listened as Clint started to explain where he thought would be the best point, and she started to make her way there. She assumed that everyone else was heading that way as well. Phoenix saw what looked to be some zombies frozen in blocks of ice along the way. It was nice to see Loki using every way that he had at his disposal for once. She knew that, despite what he said, he still had some issues with the 'frost giant' thing.

When they met at the chokepoint, leading zombies along the way, it wasn't hard to realize who was missing. "Where's our favorite piece of tin?" Loki asked, searching the sky for Tony.

"It's _Iron_man, Frostbite," Tony snapped over the radio. "Little busy at the moment, but..." It sounded like he was interrupted, taken down from behind, and a lot of commotion. Thor was already swinging his hammer to fly in what they thought was Tony's direction, but then another voice picked up on Tony's comm.

"Hello?" The voice was female, but not Amora's. Had some random person really found Tony and taken his earpiece. "How do I use this?"

"We can hear you," Steve said. "Identify yourself. Where's Ironman?"

"Oh he's unconscious. Skurge hit him from behind, but then I hit him so it's OK now," the female said quickly. Phoenix had the sense that she knew the voice, but she couldn't place it. It narrowed down who it could be considerably because she said Skurge. Had one of the SHIELD agents gotten to the ground? Sounded a little young for that. "Is this Steve? Wow...kind of been forever."

"This has officially gotten weird," Clint said, picking off the zombies that were starting to come into their chokepoint with his bow.

"Just now. It's _just_ now gotten weird," Natasha commented, shooting down another zombie with one of her pistols. "We're surrounded by zombies and now it's weird." She narrowed her eyes slightly. "You have a strange version of normal."

"We are on a first name basis with several gods, Nat. Don't talk to me about what's weird and not," Clint replied back.

"Will you two _please_ pipe down?" Steve snapped at them. "Who is this?" he repeated into the comm.

Instead of getting an answer, a young woman appeared before them, holding onto Tony, who was still on the ground. Her dark hair was tied back into a ponytail, but Phoenix couldn't see her eyes because they were focused on Tony. "I don't really remember how to get him out of this thing, but I think he has a concussion," she said, managing to pry the face mask off Tony.

"Don't remember?" Loki asked. "How would you know? You're not one of his conquests, are you?" He sighed. "Tony would sleep with people in the suit, wouldn't he?"

"No!" the young woman protested. "Well, we shared a bed a few times, but it was all platonic sleeping stuff."

Phoenix wasn't saying anything, though. Something was sincerely bothering her right now. She simply walked forward, squatting down toward the ground so that she could look the girl in the eyes. She saw that they were a matching set for her own eyes. Phoenix's eyes went wide, and her mouth dropped open. "Astra?" she asked aloud.

The now eighteenish looking Astra looked at Phoenix and smiled. "Wow, you guys really don't age, do you?" she asked with a smile, reaching over and hugging Phoenix. "You have no idea how good it is to see you guys again. I didn't think I'd ever get to."

When Astra released her, Phoenix did something that she never thought she'd do. She'd never done it before, after all. It was actually kind of embarrassing.

She fainted.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven: One Angry Bitch

Phoenix didn't see anything when she first felt consciousness pull on her. It took her a second to realize that she was actually in one of the basement rooms of Stark Tower and the lights of the still luxurious room were off. She had the feeling that someone was in the room with her, but she couldn't see anything right away.

She slowly sat up, opening her palm and lighting up a small flame so that she could see. She saw Loki lightly dozing in a chair beside her bed. With her not burning hand, she reaching over and shook his shoulder, hoping to get him to wake up.

He jerked awake, smiling at her when he realized that she was awake. "Why are we down here with no lights?" she asked him.

"Apparently we need to conserve energy while we are under siege," Loki explained to her. "The battle is still going outside, but you fainted, so I brought you here."

"And where is she?" Phoenix asked. She wasn't sure if she could still process that the young woman that she had seen was really her baby girl, so she couldn't say her name just yet.

Luckily, Loki seemed to realize what she meant. "She's waiting outside, actually," he said. He leaned over and turned on a lamp, filling the room with a low glow, and Phoenix snuffed out the fire in her hand by closing her fist. "Should I let her inside?" he asked, eyes unsure.

"I think we need to both talk to her sooner or later," Phoenix told him.

"Do you think she's telling the truth?" he asked, not moving at that moment. "Do you think she's really ours?"

She was thinking the same thing. Amora could certainly be tricking them somehow or another. She frowned and sighed. "I'm not sure if I should trust my gut about something like this," Phoenix admitted to him. "She Ifeels/I like she's mine, though." She wanted to be logical about these sorts of things, but she wasn't sure if she could be.

"I keep having the same feeling every time I look at her," Loki admitted. "I'm just worried Amora concocted some sort of spell to make us feel this way."

Phoenix sighed and rubbed her eyes, ignoring the throbbing in the back of her head. "Guess we'll just to figure things out as we go along," she said. "Bring her in."

Loki finally got up to head to the door, and Phoenix managed to not jump when she heard a minor explosion outside the building. "Some are still fighting outside," Loki said in explanation. "That and Amora is still being an ass."

She nodded, trying to force herself to relax again. Phoenix forced herself to keep breathing when she saw the curly haired young woman (Loki's hair curled when he didn't attack it with any sort of hair gel) walk into the room. She looked like she wanted to leap over and hug Phoenix and Loki, but Phoenix admittedly might have freaked out if she had, and looked it.

"So, I guess you guys want to hear about just what happened and how I'm...well, not like, two anymore, right?" Astra asked as she moved into the room, grabbing another chair and moving it up toward the bed.

"Yeah, that would be nice to hear," Phoenix admitted to her, glancing back at Loki as he stayed near the doorway for a moment.

"Skurge and I hid in some dimensional pocket that, while they didn't realize it because they're kind of immortal, time moved faster than it does here," Astra explained. "You know, if he weren't working with the She-Bitch, he actually wouldn't be that bad of a guy. He was nice enough to me, anyway." She pouted. "Even if he did hit Socks. How is Socks?"

Her memory was nothing short of amazing for her to remember them at all, much less things like the name that Tony taught her for Amora and their cat, but Loki and Phoenix both remembered things from thousands of years ago, so how odd truly was it?

"Socks is fine," Phoenix told her. "We left him up in the Helicarrier, so he's actually safer than most," she pointed out. If he were stuck in New York, then he might be in more danger.

"That's a relief," Astra said, smiling. "I missed the mystical furball. I don't know if you guys figured this out, but he's a warlock someone cursed into cat form. It took him a while, but he figured out how to occasionally perform magic while in that form."

"Kind of what we figured by the time fireballs came into question," Loki told her, still staying by the door. Phoenix wondered if he was waiting for someone to arrive.

"Is someone coming?" Phoenix asked, turning more toward Loki.

Before he could answer, a beat up looking Steve came running into the room. "You know, it's terrible when people can throw cars at you," he said.

"Bruce can throw cars," Phoenix pointed out.

"Yeah, but I don't like it when the other side can pull it off, too," Steve said quickly, trying to dust himself off. "Skurge and push a car around, plus Amora can fling them around magically." He looked up at Loki. "We really need you out there."

Phoenix started to move out of the bed, but Loki held up his hand. "You should stay and get your rest." He looked toward Astra. "Keep an eye on her." Before Phoenix could protest, he ran off with Steve.

With a huff, Phoenix kicked off the blankets. She looked up at Astra, who was wearing a grin. Oh yeah, definitely her daughter. She already knew what she was thinking. "He could have at least locked the door," Astra said, helping Phoenix up off the bed. "You sure that you're good to go?"

"I'll be fine," Phoenix said. At least she had been put in the bed with her armor, and her sword was nearby. It was as if Loki didn't really even try. "Can you still teleport?"

"Only in the same realm," Astra said.

"We only need to go outside," Phoenix said with a laugh, letting her daughter put her arm around Phoenix's waist. "Hopefully we can end this soon and do some catching up."

"Honestly, I think I missed more than you," Astra said as she tightened her grip. "My time was boring."

Phoenix shook her head. "If you were a mother, you'd know that no time with children could be boring." With that, she felt the tightening around her that notified her that they were in the process of teleporting.

OoOoOoOo

Loki had hoped that he would not have to do anything to keep his wife and daughter inside. Despite that his daughter was now functionally an adult, he doubted she had much training with her magic while Skurge held her captive. He worried that she might get hurt. Phoenix was already hurt, and likely very, very angry, and didn't need to be out here. However, he immediately felt the prickle of magic that signified a teleportation spell, and knew that Phoenix hadn't listened to reason.

He didn't know where they were, but, when he spotted Tony, he flagged him, getting him to fly down. "Will you please find my wife and daughter and tell them to go back INSIDE," he asked through gritted teeth.

Tony snorted. "Your wife can set me on fire and I'm pretty sure your daughter could pull off turning me into a giant block of ice again." He pushed the faceplate up on his suit so that he could look at Loki. "Come on, now. If they didn't listen to you, what makes you think they'll listen to me?"

Loki sighed, taking a brief moment to attack a zombie by knocking its head off with his staff. He then reached up and rubbed his eyes. "Can you at least watch over them? I'm fairly certain that Phoenix has a concussion, and I doubt that Astra was taught how to use her magical abilities properly, even if she claims that Skurge took decent care of her."

"She knows how to talk to people. Be thankful she's not a weird shut in," Tony pointed out. One glare from Loki and he held up his hands in defense. "Going to watch the godly family now." He put his mask back in place and, with a wave, he flew off.

Loki loved his family, but sometimes he wondered what he did to get ones that occasionally drove him BACK to insanity.

OoOoOoOo

It took Tony some considerable searching, but he managed to locate Phoenix and Astra. He was really freaked out by the fact that the little toddler who once called him puppy and slept in his bed had somehow grown into an adult that was _far_ too attractive for his sanity. He had always heard that two good looking people would always have ugly children, but apparently, Asgardians blew that old rule right out of the water.

When he located them, he had to fire off a few repulsor shots to clear enough space to even land. They were in the middle of a crowd of zombies, but, by Phoenix's flying sword and Astra appearing to fling them around telekinetically, they seemed to be doing alright. When he landed, he pushed up his faceplate again and shooting both of the ladies a grin. "So, how are we doing over here?" he asked them.

"Busy!" Phoenix called out, letting out a Xena-like yell before lopping the head off another zombie.

"Mom, we have to get you hobbies. You can't get all of your kicks from killing things. Really," Astra replied, even as she punched a zombie in the head, sending it flying. "Can't you like...knit or something like most moms?"

Phoenix actually paused in her fighting. "Did you have a TV or something where you were? You're...oddly knowledgeable."

Astra laughed. "Actually, yeah I did. We were in like a little apartment. I think it was magically created."

Before Phoenix could form any sort of reply, there was a crash, which turned out to be another flying car, and she only ducked just in time to miss being hit by it. All three of them looked in the direction that it came from, only to see Skurge and Amora standing there. "As sweet as this reunion is, there HAS to be better things to talk about, like the wonderful chaos I've created in your good city! Don't you like it?" Amora asked.

"Actually, it's intensely annoying," Tony said to her. "Can you go and cause chaos on some other planet, possibly far, far away?"

In what appeared to be simply a fit of anger, Tony turned around just in time to watch Phoenix rip the door off of the car that had just been thrown and hurl it directly at Amora, knocking her off balance and onto the ground. "Are you completely psychotic? Do you know what all I've missed? What Loki missed? WHAT MY DAUGHTER MISSED?" she snarled.

Tony chuckled. "You just incurred the wrath of a mother bear. Good luck, you two." He then switched to his comm. "Loki? Your wife might be going Chernobyl right now. She just ripped off a car door and hurled it at Amora. I...can really only do so much here. You wanna get yourself and your brother here to calm down the wrath of a god scorned?"

"I told you to watch her!" Loki screamed over the comm, causing Tony to wince.

Tony had to duck as a trail of fire shot near him, filing himself off to the side. "I just nearly got melted into my suit! I'd have to blast her to possibly control her at this point! Do you really want that?"

He didn't get an answer, but he suddenly felt a chill in the air, turning around and seeing the god of mischief standing behind him. It was about damn time, too, because apparently Phoenix had followed that stream of fire and was now rolling around on the ground with Amora. If it weren't between two such dangerous beings, Tony might call what was going on a cat fight.

"You know, Amora, I really ought to let her tear your hair out," Loki snapped at her. When Skurge tried to charge them, Loki turned calmly and froze him in a wall of ice. "Maybe then you'd actually learn not to mess with us."

"I'll never stop! You'll burn for what you did to me!" Amora screamed, pushing Phoenix off her and reaching a hand out, a ball of energy coming from her palm and knocking him down.

A visceral growl came from Phoenix as she reached out and grabbed Amora's leg. "I think you're the one who's going to burn," she snarled, her skin starting to turn black. Tony knew that she had a different form, but he wasn't sure that he'd ever seen it. Her skin turned black as coal, eyes yellowing.

Amora screamed, and Tony realized that Phoenix's touch was actually _burning_ her. Well that information was new and good to file away. He remembered Thor telling him that Loki, in his frost giant form, could freeze with a touch. Since Astra took more after him, that meant that she likely could as well. All good information to know.

"Phoenix, stop. Let us take her into custody," the Captain said, coming up behind Tony from god only knew where. With a snarl, she tightened her grip briefly before letting go, causing Amora to scream again. Phoenix's skin shifted back to its normally pale hue, and she folded herself up, wrapping her arms around her knees as the Captain put a set of handcuffs on Amora's wrists.

"Is he ever going to defrost?" Tony asked, looking over at Skurge.

"He'll be fine," Loki said with a wave of dismissal. "We still have the Draugr to worry about, though."

Tony grunted and turned his attention toward his comm again. "Fury, can we get some SHIELD agents down here to deal with this some? Some competent ones this time? We got Amora and Skurge, although I doubt that Amora will share the spell that will just make them all drop dead again." He grinned. "Also, might want to be bringing Amora to the burn ward. Phoenix got mad."


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight: Ends and New Beginnings

The SHIELD forces on the ground were eventually able to take care of the Draugr threat. It was likely that either Skurge or Amora was controlling them in some capacity, because their numbers and strength seemed to lessen when they were both taken into custody. Amora was placed alone back into a cell similar to the one that was on the Helicarrier, and Skurge was put into one that, without his hammer, Thor couldn't seem to break. It seemed like things were starting to wrap up nicely for them.

Except that Phoenix and Loki now had a grown daughter that, despite feeling paternal toward still, they had no idea how to act or talk to her. They were both used to treating her like a young child, when she so decidedly wasn't. Therefore, they were all expecting there to be some awkward moments as they got used to one another again.

Not that anyone else had an easy time getting used to the barely legal woman, either. Astra seemed more interested in hanging around Stark Tower than spending too much time at home. Sure, her parents were around a good bit as well, but she was still a lot to get used to.

One of the disconcerting things that she did was teleport everywhere. Tony had thought that it was weird having a toddler do it while carrying a cat, but an admittedly hot eighteen year-old doing it and getting past any sort of security measures to appear in his workshop? Freakier.

Today was like any other day, with him turning away from his workbench to find a tool, then turning around and finding the gorgeous young woman sitting on his workstation, wearing only a pink tank and cut off shorts and bare feet. He would swear later that the scream he let out was totally manly. "I'd want to put a bell around your neck, but teleporting sort of takes the usefulness out of that," he said to her, hand reaching up and moving over his arc reactor. "You know you can give an old man a heart attack by doing that, right?"

"Yeah right," Astra said, reaching out and putting the ball of her foot against his chest and pushing light. "I'm pretty sure that you're gonna find a way to outlive us all, aren't you? You're the inventor anyway, right?"

"Can't invent the eternity serum if you kill me first, kid," he said, stepping away from her to set the wrench he had just picked up away. "Besides, I'm pretty sure that I'd need the blood of either your parents or your uncle, and none of them have exactly been forthcoming."

"Here, take some of mine then," Astra said, sticking out her wrist as if he could just take blood then and there.

"Your parents would kill me, likely by setting me on fire or freezing me multiple times before finally cutting off my head with that big damn sword that your mother is so fond of," Tony said quickly, even as he was still seriously considering that, if he had her blood, he might be able to synthesize something.

"Then we won't tell them right away, will we?" Astra said in a sing song voice. "Wouldn't want to make a fuss and then have nothing come of it, right?" she asked him. "Besides, maybe you can figure out some other stuff about us, right? Get a Nobel Prize and everything?"

"...you're trying to get me in trouble, aren't you?" Tony asked her, eyebrows raised. Her parents were mischievous, but DAMN she was just going to get him in trouble, wasn't she? "Can't exactly share anything that I learn about you guys without SHIELD coming down hard on my head and Fury making an ashtray out of my skull." He grinned. "Plus, there are far more fun ways to piss Fury off than just going public with something."

"Is there now?" Astra asked with a bit of an arched eyebrow. "So, wanna share some of these ways of pissing off the commander, puppy?"

"I was really hoping that you had forgotten that name," Tony said with a groan. "You've really got no excuse calling me that now."

"So I'm not cute enough to call you that anymore?" Astra asked, pouting at him. She leaned closer to him, pout going into kind of extremes.

He started laughing when she said that. "Never said that. You could always come up with a better nickname than that, though." He was trying really hard not to eye her up as she was leaning over like that. He was pretty sure that he wasn't succeeding very well, especially by the sly grin the girl had on her face.

"Well, I've got to get to know you better before I can come up with an _appropriate_ nickname for you, Tony," Astra said to him, still grinning. "You gonna let me do that?"

Tony was pretty sure that he was going to die for this. "I think I'm up for that, Astra," he told her, returning her grin with one of his own. Oh yeah, he was likely going to die for this, but at least it was going to be one hell of a ride.

Before either of them could say anything else, both Loki and Phoenix teleported into the room as well. "We're apparently needed for a meeting with Fury," Phoenix said, lazily inspecting her nails for dirt. "Apparently, they are trying to figure out just what they should do with Amora and Skurge. Everyone already realizes that just sticking them in a prison isn't going to do any good."

"Well, I think we figured that out around the time you busted Loki out of the Asgardian prison, or maybe even when Amora managed to bust out of the prison on the Helicarrier," Tony pointed out. "Any one of those instances is a great example that normal stuff just isn't going to cut it."

"And yet she might find her way around magic as well," Loki said, much more aware of his surroundings by how he was looking around the room. By the way, he was looking at his daughter and Loki. "So, Fury wants to chat, it seems."

"All right, fine. I'll get my ass over there when I'm damn good and ready," Tony said with a sigh. He wished that he didn't have to deal with this meeting bullshit, but it seemed like they were all stuck with dealing with it by being an Avenger.

"Phoenix, why don't you and Astra go ahead?" Loki suggested. Phoenix just shrugged. She took Astra's hand and the two of them teleported out of the room and, presumably, to where the meeting was.

Loki gave Tony an almost feral grin. "You seem to develop an eye for my family that I find _most_ disconcerting."

Tony held up his hands quickly in defense. "Hey hey! I get that it's a look but no touch sort of situation. I'm not suicidal." At least, he didn't think he was, anyway, even if Astra looked really good in those shorts.

"It would be good for you to keep it that way," Loki said, still grinning at him. "I wouldn't want anything bad to happen to you, after all. I wouldn't want anything to happen to the family pet, after all."

Tony groaned slightly as Loki teleported himself out of the room as well. He looked up toward the ceiling, talking to JARVIS. "What did I do to deserve all of these threats from people?" Tony asked.

"I believe that it's considered karma, sir, for all the people whom you used to kick out of bed without ceremony," JARVIS said, and Tony was certain he could hear a smirk in the AI's voice.

"Did Pepper tell you to say that?" Tony asked, caught between wanting to laugh and bang his head against something.

OoOoOoOo

While they waited for Fury to arrive, Loki and Phoenix leaned against each other and had a little discussion of their own.

"How much did you threaten him?" Phoenix asked Loki. They had both gotten a good look at how Tony had peered at Astra a time or two, and thought that they should try to put the kibosh on it before it turned into something more than looks.

"Not too much, but I do believe I made my point," Loki said with a small smile on his face. "Hopefully, I do not have to follow up on those threats. The man does kind of grow on you after a while, plus he is fairly intelligent for a human."

"And it's fun to watch him squirm," Phoenix admitted with a grin. "Still, I'd rather not end up with an Avenger as a future son-in-law. That would just make things endlessly complicated, wouldn't it?"

"All of them are rather squishy and vulnerable," Loki agreed. "Besides, as soon as he touched our daughter, I'd likely just eviscerate him, so no in-law worries."

"Like killing him would end it," Phoenix muttered. At his arched eyebrow, she continued. "She's a teenager, basically. She'd raise him from the dead just to spite you."

He nodded. "Guess that would make her my daughter then," he said, stifling a laugh as Fury walked into the room.

Fury looked around at all of them and sighed. "So, unless you haven't been paying attention, and I wouldn't put that past some of you, the zombies outside have mostly been cleaned up, but the big issue is what to do with Amora and Skurge. It stands to reason that just locking them up somewhere likely won't do any damn good, since apparently all Asgardians are fucking Houdinis."

Ignoring the snickers, he continued. "Anyway, I'm opening the floor to ideas, and don't give me exile, because apparently that didn't work, either, and I'm not up for a repeat of a lovesick woman making havoc of New York City, thanks."

"We basically have to build something that Thor can't break out of and Loki can't magic his way out of, right?" Clint asked, piping in from the back of the room.

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock, but the problem is coming up with something that fits even ONE of those requirements, much less both," Tony pointed out. "The iron worked pretty well on Amora, and I suppose we can always stick Skurge in a Bruce!proof room, but how far away do we have to put them from one another to make sure no conspiring goes on?"

"I'm not sure that there _is_ a distance that we can separate them to prevent that," Loki chimed in. "It would have to be realms, at least. Amora is quite strong, and her link with Skurge is great." He sighed. "I believe that hiding one here and one on Asgard might be the best choice."

"Anyone have a problem with that?" Fury asked. When no one said anything, he clapped his hands together. "Done, then. Thor, get in touch with your father and work someone out. I don't care _which_ one you take, just make sure that you can keep them imprisoned." He looked directly at Thor for the last part. "Your people don't exactly have a good track record with criminals."

"Or you've simply never been faced with a smart enough criminal," Loki remarked, looking at his fingernails for a moment.

Fury glared at him with his one good eye for a moment. "Everyone get out of here before I lose my temper," he said with a wave of his hand, turning his back on all of them. Everyone quickly filed their way out, more than happy to get on with their day doing god knows what.

"He's just mad because you pointed out the truth," Phoenix remarked with a grin to Loki as they walked away.

(And that brings us to the end of this story! There will be a sequel (if the semi-obvious set up wasn't a giveaway), so keep your eyes open! Thanks for all of the support, folks!)


End file.
